acquired from their location in the Philippines and brought to California, but lacking the $300,000 per locomotive in restoration costs, train operations began with two small diesel locomotives, including a 1939-built Geo D. Whitcomb Company switcher, and a 1948-built GE 25-ton switcher. The Kauai Plantation Railway was "Hawaii's first new railroad to be built in 100 years". While intended as a tourist attraction, by July 2007, Atkins reported that approximately 40 percent of riders were instead Hawaiian residents, which came as a welcome surprise to the railway. Operations and equipment The Kauai Plantation Railway offers several train rides around the plantation. The trains pass through a variety of fields and orchards that grow fruit for the plantation, along with animals such as pigs, goats, and donkeys. In addition to a basic train ride, the railroad also offers an "adventure tour", where the train stops and passengers disembark to feed animals and visit a nearby valley. Trains are primarily pulled by the railroad's 25-ton switcher, and passengers ride in four passenger cars, each with a capacity of 36. The cars are named after Hawaiian rivers, and were ordered from the Philippines to a similar design as that of passenger cars once used by King Kalākaua of Hawaiʻi. The railway has both enclosed passenger cars and a car with open sides. The passenger cars sit on six flatcars originally built in 1941 at Pearl Harbor by the U.S. Navy, which were then used by the Oahu Railway and Land Company and afterwards sold to White Pass and Yukon Route in Alaska. See also Heritage railways in Kauai Grove Farm (Lihue, Hawaii) Hawaiian Railway Society References External links Hawaii railroads 3 ft gauge railways in the United States Railway companies established in 2007